


Once In Silence

by ElAlmaDelMar



Category: One Piece
Genre: M/M, Mutually Unrequited, Pining, Post-Thriller Bark, Post-Timeskip, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:40:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28407141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElAlmaDelMar/pseuds/ElAlmaDelMar
Summary: Zoro runs through the ruins of Kuraigana.And as he runs, he thinks.
Relationships: Roronoa Zoro/Sanji
Comments: 8
Kudos: 110
Collections: Zosan Club - Secret Santa 2020





	Once In Silence

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rika_chan24](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rika_chan24/gifts).



> Secret Santa gift for Rika_chan24 for the ZS Club Secret Santa! The prompt I went with was "reuniting with one another after a long time." And of course, timeskip was sitting right there in front of me being a very long time. I hope you like it! 
> 
> Thanks to KabochaKitsune for beta reading ♥

Zoro runs through the ruins of Kuraigana. 

It isn't a graceful run. It's been obvious since it happened that the loss of his eye would throw him off, but until Perona stopped hovering and let him out of the castle, he hadn't realized how badly. Inside, depth perception means less; nothing can be all that far away from him. But out here, with a longer field of view and more visual chaos to keep track of, the true scope of his loss — no, of this new challenge he can and _will_ overcome — is setting in. He stumbles on rubble that doesn't seem to be quite underfoot yet, bounces off crumbling pillars that he thinks he's going to slide between, tries to leap obstacles he's confident he can clear and finds himself hitting them, starting his jump too soon or too late. 

His face throbs. Sweat stings and his pulse pounds in the still-raw, lividly crimson cut. His bruises ache. But he will not stop until he masters his understanding of his surroundings. Until he can _know_ where everything is around him, can _feel_ his surroundings instead of relying on his eyes — _eye_ — to see them. 

And as he runs, he thinks. 

Losing his eye is a hard blow, but he will overcome it. Not because he's infallible — hell, the damn scar on his face is testament enough that he isn't — or because he thinks highly of himself, but because there is no other choice. He will overcome it because Luffy needs him. He will overcome it because Luffy needs him _to be strong_. The whole crew needs him to be strong. In a year and a half, he might not come back to them as the greatest swordsman, but he will come back to them ready to be their strength as they enter the New World. 

The last they'd all seen of him, he'd been far too weak — still recovering from Thriller Bark, from the first exercise of Kuma's strange power. He couldn't protect them like he should. It burns him up — burns him with determination, but sometimes also with shame, that when they'd parted, he'd been weak. He knew then and knows now Luffy wouldn't call him that, knows most of the crew wouldn't call him that, but he _was_. 

Maybe the cook would say it. _He_ has never held back on pointing out Zoro's flaws. It makes it easy for Zoro to think the cook is in a way the most honest among them, his lazy-lidded gaze hiding a keen mind and his tongue as sharp as one of his prized knives, ready to flay Zoro to the bone. 

But he'd learned that that wasn't all honesty, either. And maybe the cook _wouldn't_ call him out for weakness, because weakness was when he'd learned the lie of that tongue.

* * *

He awoke in a world of pain; there's no way to say _what_ hurt, because _everything_ hurt. For an instant, he almost regretted that he was still alive to feel like this — but that feeling wasn't like him, and it faded as he awakened fully. He lay in a bed, not a hammock — the infirmary on Sunny, he realized — and there was a sharp, acrid scent of tobacco mingling with the scent of herbs and antiseptics. 

The cook sat in the chair beside the bed. He wasn't smoking — Chopper would skin him alive for smoking in the infirmary — but the scent of smoke clung to him, thick enough that he must have been chainsmoking recently. His visible eye was closed; Zoro wondered if he was actually asleep like that, sitting uncomfortably upright. He looked haggard. Dark circles under his eyes. 

Zoro was so fucking glad he was alive. 

The feeling slammed into him, grabbed him by the throat. With it, the memory of Sanji. Sanji pushing him aside, standing unstable and battered but determined, a lean reed against the hurricane. Telling Zoro calmly that they'll have to find a new chef. 

He hurt all over and he knew he was barely alive, but fuck, knocking the cook out was the only thing he could do in that moment. Losing him was — 

Was a lot of things Zoro had never let himself name, not even in his own head. It was impossible to do so. Pointless. He'd grown up swearing he'd never fall in love because his goal overrode anything else, and then not only did he fail in that determination, but he fell for the most loudly straight man he'd ever met. What a joke. 

But it wasn't a joke to thwart Sanji's attempted self-sacrifice. He would have died back there; Zoro knew it like he knew his own name. Not that Sanji wasn't strong. He was. But he didn't have determination like Zoro's determination. He would let go where Zoro stubbornly clung on. He'd die. 

Zoro could not let him die. Would not. And so here they were, Zoro in bed, swathed in bandages and pain; Sanji by his bedside, reeking of smoke and stress. 

One blue eye opened, and for just a moment, Sanji looked down at him hazily, half awake. 

Then his eyes went wide, and he sat up. "Oi! You're awake!" 

"Unfortunately," Zoro grumbled, and something inside him wanted to shrink away a little. He had to put it all away again, those feelings. He and the cook bickered ordinarily, fought in a way that was angry on the surface but not underneath; if Sanji ever found out the desire Zoro felt toward him, it would be for deadly real. 

"'Unfortunately,' my ass!" the cook snapped. "It's been too damn long! I- We were all worried as shit!" 

"Luffy," Zoro said, scowling — unwilling to accept anyone's worry over him. He was fine. Nothing happened. "Is he—?" 

"Luffy's fine." The cook shook his head. "He's _fine_. Completely. Like…" A pause, and then a sharp, cutting look at Zoro. "Like _nothing happened._ " 

"Then that's what matters." Zoro tried to cross his arms — pain rippled through him, tore at his biceps and chest, and he thought better of it. 

" _Bullshit._ " And then the cook was right in his face, so close that blond hair tickled against Zoro's cheek with the abrupt shove forward. "Bull _shit_ , Roronoa Zoro! You can't just fucking say it doesn't matter if — if you — "

"If I what, cook?" Raising an eyebrow was something Zoro _could_ do, so he did, staring straight into Sanji's blue eyes. 

(What a mistake. Those eyes were too arresting. He should never. But if he looked away now, he lost. So he held his ground and held that azure stare.)

"If you had _died_ ," Sanji said, weighting each word like stones to sink to the seafloor, "then where would we be?" 

"You'd be fucking delighted," Zoro shot back. "Don't lie to me, shit-cook. You've hated me since the start." 

"You think I'd —" The cook broke off in a strangled noise, frustrated and hectic for no reason Zoro could truly understand. "This crew _needs you_ , dumbass. You aren't fucking expendable."

Zoro heard the words the cook didn't say. _Unlike me._ Remembered Sanji standing before Kuma, pushing him out of the way. _Give everyone my regards. You'll have to start looking for a new cook._ Fucking expendable. Who would have thought that was the cook's view of himself? 

He growled in response, angry but keeping his voice low. This was an argument they maybe had to have, but if anyone else heard them, he… he didn't know what he'd do. "Luffy won't get a damn mile without you to feed his face, shitty cook. 'Get a new chef' my ass." 

"And how the hell far is he going to get without _you_?!" Sanji snapped back, his voice rising. Zoro would throttle him to shut him up, but right now, he didn't think he could win that fight. "Luffy — hell — _this whole damn crew_ needs you. There's not a one of us who doesn't know that!" 

Zoro paused. Something in Sanji's rising voice, in his intent gaze, in the agitated energy rolling off him in waves, caught his (ever-hopeful, ever-despairing) attention. "... Even you, cook?" 

"Even—" The cook broke off in a choked noise. " _Especially_ me, you fucker! How have you not —" Zoro would never find out what it is that he evidently had not, because then there was warm heat and pressure against his mouth — against his lips — the taste of tobacco and salt filling his senses — 

The cook was already out of the infirmary, a staccato of battle-hardened dress shoes and the slam of the door, before Zoro properly understood that Sanji had just kissed him. Sanji, their cook — the _loudly straight_ cook that Zoro had been helplessly in love with for longer than he wanted to admit — had just kissed Zoro, out of nowhere, after lecturing him about how much everyone needed him. 

He still hadn't digested everything that might mean, everything it implied, when their crew shattered against the great rock of Bartholemew Kuma in Sabaody.

* * *

He doesn't entirely know what it meant then, and he doesn't know what it will mean when (not _if_ , there is no doubt in his mind on the matter) their crew reunites. The cook had cursed him, kissed him, and then stormed out of the infirmary. And nothing in his behavior seemed to have changed afterward — but then, between that incident and their subsequent shattering, there had never been a moment that they could speak. Never a moment Zoro could catch the cook by himself, never a moment he could say… anything. 

He doesn't entirely know what he would say, even now, even with time to think (brood) about it. Maybe by the time the two years are over, the cook will have forgotten it all anyway. They'll return to Sabaody, all of them — Zoro has no doubt of that — and everything will be painfully normal between them, cutting sarcasm and rivalry and insults and the quiet bond of nakamaship beneath, but no particular interest from the cook. That's the most likely, isn't it? Zoro will continue to watch Sanji chase women, and will content himself with occasionally picturing an imaginary version of the cook giving him the same soft-eyed look he turns on Nami and Robin when he's not leaping to fill an immediate perceived need. 

But maybe he won't. And as much as it's likely going to end badly, Zoro's not going to simply pretend that kiss didn't happen. He can't. He will not be toyed with like that. When the time comes, the cook will have to acknowledge it, and Zoro will have his answer.

* * *

He's the first one to reach Sabaody. 

At least, so Rayleigh and Shakky inform him, and he sees no reason to think they're wrong. He's a little proud of it (take that, all the claims that he always gets lost!) but it means more waiting. The day is fast approaching, and if the others have any sense, they'll try to be early just like him, rather than accepting the risk of overshooting the appointed day and not being there when the two years are up and the Strawhat Pirates officially reunite. 

He could see them any day now. Turn around and there's Robin, or find Usopp around the corner. 

Or Sanji. _Or Sanji._

And of course it's when he stops expecting the cook and decides to distract himself for a while that he finally sees him. A fishing trip sounds like a good plan, preparing for Luffy and his appetite to arrive, and he tells himself that he'll be focused on that and out at sea, where he won't expect the cook to suddenly appear. It's half a lie, of course — he's still thinking of the cook, catching fish because the cook will appreciate it — but at least he won't be looking for him while he fishes. 

And then he gets on the wrong boat, and that causes all sorts of ugliness when he wakes up and notices it, and then when he surfaces amid the wreckage, there's the familiar golden head and pressed suit standing on the shore. 

_Cook!_ His heart leaps. Sanji on the shore looks older, stronger, poised and confident in his power. It's the exact sort of beauty that drew Zoro to him in the first place, and Zoro feels himself fall in love all over again. Now the moment of truth is at hand, because that kiss has been leaning on his mind for _over_ two damn years. He's not going to let it slide any longer. 

The cook eyes him up and down as he reaches the shore and rises dripping from the sea. The day is warm, but not hot; the sea breeze cuts a little close, but the cold has never bothered Zoro particularly and under Sanji's gaze, he refuses to show even the faintest sign of discomfort. He might be in love with the cook but that doesn't mean their rivalry is meaningless. 

Sanji opens his mouth, doubtless to say something cutting and sarcastic, but Zoro cuts him off. Now is the time for boldness. No more holding back. 

"Cook," he says, and can't resist making even this a sort of challenge of its own. His tone is casual, so casual he might be remarking on the weather, even as his heart pounds, and he says, "I missed you." And he stares Sanji right in the eye, challenging him. 

The one visible blue eye widens, and the cook's mouth snaps shut. Whatever he's expecting their reunion to be like, it certainly isn't _that_ , and Zoro feels a little spark of competitive pride. _Gotcha!_

There's a moment of silence; Zoro lets it stretch out, doesn't say anything further to rescue Sanji from the awkwardness of switching mental gears. Twirly-brow is too much of a self-proclaimed gentleman (and, Zoro knows, he's got at least enough soft feelings to have kissed him before) to reply to such a statement with hostility, but he doesn't seem to know how to be any different. 

Finally, sputtering, the cook says, "W-well, I missed you too, dumbass!" and Zoro has to laugh. It feels good to hear, even with the (meaningless, really) insult tacked on. Maybe… maybe...

"It's a nice day," he says, still bland and laconic, as though nothing he's saying is unusual. "Was gonna fish, but those guys got in my way. Walk with me a bit, cook." 

"I gotta get _Sunny_ stocked before we're all together again. Don't have time to wander around all day," Sanji protests, but it's toothless; he still sounds disoriented and off-balance, and he tucks his hands in his pockets and ambles at Zoro's side along the shore. 

So far, so good. Zoro's heart is in his throat, but he won't shy away from this. And it's never been his way to beat around the bush. 

"It's been two years," he says as soon as the fisherman and the survivors from his abortive fishing trip are out of earshot. "I didn't get a chance to say anything to you before. But I ain't forgotten what happened in the infirmary, cook. And I'm gonna guess you haven't either." 

Silence. Sanji's walking on his blind side, and while Zoro has trained enough and has good enough command of Haki to not actually need anyone to cover his left side for him, it doesn't escape his notice that the cook automatically took pains to do so. He could take it as an insult, but he knows it isn't. It's concern — it's caution and attention to detail. That's part of why he's fallen so hard for him, even despite everything. 

Finally, Sanji says, low and uncertain, "You almost died. I wasn't — I wasn't thinking right. It doesn't have to mean anything." 

"Fuck that." Zoro's tone is perfectly conversational, but all the same, unyielding. "You don't get to kiss me then insist it's meaningless. That's not how you operate." 

"I didn't say it _is_ meaningless," Sanji snaps. "I said it _could be_. You hate me. I'm not rocking that boat." 

" _You_ hate _me_ ," Zoro says. "Except you don't, do you? And what makes you think I have to hate you for real? I stopped you tryin' to die for me, and that's cause I like you alive." 

There's another of those pauses then. Zoro can't see Sanji, and his Observation isn't good enough to give him things like facial expressions, but all the same, he's sensitive to his environment, enough to know that beside him, the cook is _startled_. 

So, in the absence of an answer, he goes on. "And I'm not here to rehash everything that happened with Kuma. The point is afterward. The point is, _you kissed me_ , cook, and I ain't about to forget it." 

Then he stops and turns toward Sanji, and reaches out to grab his wrist. He needs to touch him for this — needs that connection, even as he stares him in the eye. 

"You did it once, and I want you to do it again. I've had two years to think about it, and two years to think I should'a _made_ the time to say something to you before. But the past is the past and I can't fix it. The only thing to change is the future. So I'm sayin' it now." 

Sanji stares at him, wide-eyed, but doesn't try to break his hold. 

"The fact is this, cook." Zoro draws a deep breath. "I'm in love with you. And I think you're maybe feeling a little the same way. Or you wouldn't have done that, right? Even if you were freaked out and rattled and whatever. There's still gotta be something in there. And I don't want to shove it down and ignore it, not when we don't have to." 

He wants to end his little speech on a question, on _asking_ something about how Sanji feels or maybe if Sanji is willing to give him a chance, but the words won't come, and he trails off, his heart laid bare but with only an implicit invitation for the cook to do the same. 

But miracle of miracles, he _does_. 

"Stupid," the cook says softly — and his gaze softens too, a look Zoro's only ever seen turned on Chopper, or occasionally on the girls when they're engrossed in their own business and Sanji is twisting himself into knots to avoid disturbing them. Seeing it aimed at himself is a new experience. "You're damn right I wouldn't have… done that… if I didn't feel anything. But that's different from being ready to say anything, or — or _do_ anything, I guess. I needed these two years to be ready for it." 

That sounds more hopeful than Zoro knows how to process fully. If he _needed_ the two years, and now he's _had_ them, does that mean…? 

"So, here we are," the cook concludes. "And… and I think it's time for me to stop running from this." He flushes, and oh, the crimson spreading across those pale cheeks is appealing. It's always seemed stupid to Zoro in the past, but knowing it's for _him_ recasts the cook's propensity to color in a whole new light. 

"So," he says, barely a quarter twist of a question to the word. "If you're sayin' that, cook, are you…?" 

"Yeah." Sanji summons a smile for him, crooked and uncertain and _real_. "Yeah. I am." 

And then he reaches up and cups a hand against the back of Zoro's head, and he's moving slowly enough to telegraph every movement, and that means he's moving slowly enough for Zoro to _participate_ this time — to mimic Sanji's step inward, to rest a hand on his thin waist in answer to the cool fingers stirring in his hair, and when their lips come together it isn't _Sanji kissing Zoro_ or _Zoro kissing Sanji_ , but both — both of them acknowledging this thing together. 

It's short. They aren't surrounded by people, but they are out at the shore and visible enough. And besides, it doesn't _have_ to be anything more than short. Plenty of good things are short — the word _love_ itself is short. 

When they draw apart, Zoro is grinning, and Sanji's mouth twists in an affectionate smile of answer. 

" _Finally,_ " he says. "I spent the last two years second-guessing myself. Wondering if I'd return to find you half a stranger, freezing me out to make sure I didn't do such a stupid thing ever again." 

"You're dumb." It's the only thing Zoro thinks really needs saying. "You're dumb, and that wasn't a stupid thing, and — and hell. You better do it again and again, or I'm gonna be pissed at you." 

Sanji laughs — really laughs, open and delighted. "Then I guess I've got my marching orders, huh?" And he leans in and steals another quick kiss. "I think I can do that." 

"For as long as we keep sailing together," Zoro adds, and his hand feels like it's glued to Sanji's waist now; he doesn't want to let go, and reels him in instead, holding him right up against his chest. 

"Yeah, yeah. You got it. No more keeping it all in silence." Sanji leans in willingly. "It's gonna be a lot to figure out, I guess," he adds. "It's… different, you know? But I'm looking forward to it." 

"New World, new start," Zoro agrees. "And speaking of, I can't wait to see what else you learned in the last two years, cook. You strong now?" 

"Stronger than you," Sanji retorts with a laugh. "Got some new moves to show me, marimo?" 

"Gonna blow your socks off," Zoro promises, and they turn their feet away from the shore, toward the markets of Sabaody so that they can prepare for their new adventures to come. 

Whatever they face, they'll face it together. And Zoro wouldn't want it any other way.

**Author's Note:**

> _I loved you once in silence,  
>  and mis'ry was all I knew.  
> Trying so to keep my love from showing  
> All the while not knowing  
> You loved me too._


End file.
